Can convalescent Plasma therapy from recovered coronavirus patient treat infected people?
New Delhi, Apr 07: As the novel coronavirus that has killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world and are getting sick with covid-19 every few days, several new experimental therapies are being proposed and tested by medical researchers, including anti-viral drugs which can kill viruses.
So far, there's no vaccine, and no drug known to work to reverse the illness cause by the novel coronavirus.
Two South Koreans recover from coronavirus after plasma therapy from survivors
But Researchers have now explored one potentially promising treatment to help people infected with the coronavirus: infusions of antibody-rich plasma from recovered patients who have had the disease.
The convalescent plasma (CP) therapy was conducted on 10 adult patients with severe COVID-19, aged 34-78 years.
The results of the pilot study suggest that CP therapy may be a safe and promising therapeutic option for severe COVID-19 infections.
Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) Injections
Platelet-rich plasma therapy is a form of regnerative medicine that can harness those abilities and amplify the natural growth factors your body uses to heal tissue.
The science behind plasma therapy and passive immunisation, per se, is not new or novel considering that the concept, introduced by a German immunologist Emil von Behring, has existed since 1890, and has been widely applied for the treatment of different infectious diseases including mumps, measles and polio etc.
This treatment modality has previously been used as a desperate last resort step during Ebola outbreaks of 2014, and also in the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers).
The treatment is based on the function of antibodies, proteins created by the immune system that combat invaders to the body in a variety of ways. Some are capable of neutralizing a virus, while others work by mobilizing a range of other immune cells that fight off disease. It's not yet known by which mechanism COVID-19 antibodies might work, but the thinking is that an infusion of convalescent plasma may boost a generalized response, known as passive immunity, until a patient develops a strong, targeted ability to fight the virus.